Emails carry none of the emotional weight of pen put to paper

In a June column in the Globe and Mail, Johanna Schneller commingled a conversation she had with actress Greta Gerwig (“quicksilver loveliness,” “evanescent beauty”) and another with Gerwig’s lover, writer-director Noah Baumbach (“edgy character dramas”).

When the actress and director first met, Baumbach was married, and then came separation, and then came the moment when Baumbach wondered whether Gerwig, who had appeared in two previous Baumbach productions, had any ideas — a movie script idea, that is. One they could co-write.

“Over the next year they fell in love in a 21st-century version of a 19th-century courtship,” Schneller tells us. “Instead of letters, they passed e-mails back and forth (first just details and moments, which gradually became scenes), occasionally getting together to read aloud what they had written.”

This distresses.

The practicality and efficiency of “email” — the very word exudes a waft of officey unpleasantness — is not a natural companion to love and courtship in any of its forms.

In the game of love the email is, rather, a surgically sharp tool for venting, spleen emptying and breakup.

It would be daft to suggest that the magical couple would have been wiser to draft their script outline for the movie Frances Ha longhand.

It’s those first exchanges that worry me — the snippets, the moments. Love just coming into bloom, as one reveals, tentatively at first, one’s outlook on the world.

In the 20th century, the handwritten letter reigned, for obvious reasons. Perhaps its qualities are less obvious to some today. You arrive home from work, and there, in the post — such a word of antiquity! — is a handwritten note, just for you. Perhaps it is a note of thanks. Perhaps get-well wishes. Perhaps Happy Birthday. Perhaps love.

Contemplate the intimacy and the caring. The purchase of the perfect card. The consideration of which pen to use. The tactile moment when the person you love puts pen to paper, with great thought, because there is no delete key. You can feel the writer’s presence. (All the better if a fountain pen is the pen of choice.)

In contrast, consider the most soulless contribution to interpersonal relations — e-cards of any type. Especially birthday ones. Especially animated birthday ones. Please make them stop.

An editor raises this point: perhaps we are merely witnessing the evolution of communication. Stop complaining.

Well, no. What we are witnessing is the devolution of caring and thoughtfulness.

Will our children look back upon an archive of exchanged emails as they seek insights into the quantum of their parents love for each other? Doubtful.

On this weekend, do this one thing. Seek out a pen. Acquire paper of good stock. Matching envelopes are lovely. Be alone — a bedroom, a park. Conjure one person you care about deeply. And so it begins.

Here, I’ll help you out.

Dear . . .

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.